Why So Many Ivy League Fund Managers?

[DT-waw]

Quote from aphexcoil:

Aphie's Entrance Essay:

Yo college admissions officer. I be wanting to take some of your classes at your Ivy League School. I can count, add, subtract, and subdivide. I be speaking well and like to take notes in class.

Let me into your big brick brain palace so that i may be smarter tomorrow than i be yesterday.

Thank you for looking at this essay -- i know you guys read a lot so I've left out the other 400 words. Peace out.

You should add:
"I'll need a $500G job to pay off my education costs. As a Ivy League School Graduate I won't be much wiser, but also much dumber than other graduates, so I'm sure I'll get a job.

Quote from omcate:
His former boss is now earning a salary of $500,000 plus bonus. There is rumor that he still fails to make a single penny of profit from trading !!

Look, last week I made $135 trading eminis, so I'm smarter than some top CEOs. I want 2 B your School student sooo much! Please let me in. Full respect, man... Aphie Aphexcoil

Corso, I guess their connections plus documented knowledge help them to get a fund manager job. I don't think that at Ivy League Schools you can learn some valuable things which aren't available on the internet for free.

 

[omcate]

Quote from 0008:



From where did he get the money? Is he a broker? Or did he work with the guys at Enron?

He is not a broker. He did not work at Enron either. He just knows some rich people.

 

[vladiator]

Quote from DT-waw:



Corso, I guess their connections plus documented knowledge help them to get a fund manager job. I don't think that at Ivy League Schools you can learn some valuable things which aren't available on the internet for free.

Agree.

 

[DT-waw]

Quote from Corso482:

You guys still haven't answered one question.

Yes, I understand that an ivy league student is more likely to be hired.

Yes, I understand that they have more connections and access to money.

However, in the hedge fund industry none of that matters! The only thing that matters is good, consistent, objective returns.

One more thing: it doesn't look good (on a fund website for example) when fund manager has finished high school only!
For marketing purposes and fund image - MBA, PhD or some famous University Degree is some sort of guarantee that manager knows what he's doing. Yeah you can give LTCM example here, guys with Nobel Prize...

 

[MondoTrader]

"However, in the hedge fund industry none of that matters! The only thing that matters is good, consistent, objective returns."

That is just naive and untrue. At any given time there are lots of absolutely shitty fund managers out there, many of them MBA types from top schools. Of course, they don't last very long, but then they just get replaced by more of the same. They pick Ivy leaguers because if a guy screws up, the guy that hired him can say "but he had great credentials, so its not my fault". Credentials help raise money for funds, and help to deflect blame when losses occur.

 

[DT-waw]

Quote from MondoTrader:

They pick Ivy leaguers because if a guy screws up, the guy that hired him can say "but he had great credentials, so its not my fault". Credentials help raise money for funds, and help to deflect blame when losses occur.

This is also exactly how the whole corporate world operates...

 

[inandlong]

Quote from m22au:

Does the Ivy League actually exist?
Or is it just something that is perceived by people?
If the former, when was it founded, and why?

G'day mate!

This is a bit of sports trivia actually. While we spell it "Ivy", and it is appropriate, the real name comes from the days when there were four teams playing football together, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and I cannot remember the fourth. But it was called the IV League.

Hence the name.

Now here is another....

Name 10 Divison 1-A football teams, whose name does not end with the letter "S"!

For example, UCLA Bruins does. Name 10 who do not.

 

[CalTrader]

Quote from Corso482:

You guys still haven't answered one question.

Yes, I understand that an ivy league student is more likely to be hired.

Yes, I understand that they have more connections and access to money.

However, in the hedge fund industry none of that matters! The only thing that matters is good, consistent, objective returns.

All of these top performing ivy league managers have made great returns year after year. I'm likely to conclude that there must be some link, therefore, between intelligence and trading, because all the connections and past employers in the world won't make you a good trader.

But there's also the possibility that I'm falling for the representative heuristic, and there are hundreds of ivy managers who are failures.

It's also possible that within the distribution of successful traders, ivy leaguers compose a similar percentage as they do in the general population, and it's just that their connections etc. allowed them to set up huge funds, making them more visible than their less educated peers.

... Perhaps a measure of intelligence of the customers and management of these hedge funds and wall street firms is that they believe the best candidates are only available at Harvard etc.

Start observing the business world: many world class companies are NOT dominated or headed by a Harvard or other top buisness scholl alum. In fact if you look at the list of indicted officers and directors in recent years it appears that the list is skewed towards graduates of top business schools.

The culture on the street is one of money and top schools are where money hangs out and thus it makes sense to recruit where the odds favor a corporate culture match and perhaps, added benefits through connections to the firm.

I'm sure that harvard, stanford, UChicago etc wished they could control the world. Fortunately, for society, they dont.

 

[omcate]

Quote from MondoTrader:

"However, in the hedge fund industry none of that matters! The only thing that matters is good, consistent, objective returns."

That is just naive and untrue. At any given time there are lots of absolutely shitty fund managers out there, many of them MBA types from top schools. Of course, they don't last very long, but then they just get replaced by more of the same. They pick Ivy leaguers because if a guy screws up, the guy that hired him can say "but he had great credentials, so its not my fault". Credentials help raise money for funds, and help to deflect blame when losses occur.

I agree.

This is how I feel after getting a degree from an Ivy league school, and then working at several investment banks and a hedge fund.